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@IOForienteering

Competitors taking part in the Canadian Championships Long Distance race this weekend are being offered a novel warm-up activity on their way to the start. As they travel by chair-lift up the slopes of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, BC, they will use a map of the terrain they can see below them to solve seven trail orienteering problems – with, of course, a fixed time limit for each one!

This is the same mountain where the alpine skiing and bobsled & luge were held during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The orienteering race itself is mostly in the forest next to the ski runs. To get to the start of the race, orienteers will take the Wizard chair-lift – so the orienteering map is titled Black Magic.

As they get on the chair-lift, each person will be given a copy of the warm-up map and a pencil. On the ride up, they will be able to see seven controls. On their warm-up map are seven control circles, each with a corresponding control description. The competitors must mark “A” if the circle and control description correspond to a flag they can see, and “Z” if it does not.

This is of course a fun competition, and three or four ‘winners’ will be selected at random from everyone who solves all of the problems correctly. The competition is the brainchild of Remo Madella, who has professionally mapped the area for the Championships and is himself an experienced trail orienteer and a member of the Italian national trailO team.